I stumbled upon an interesting article a few days ago. In it, the author describes a pilot program by The National Archives (you know, where the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Emancipation Proclamation are stored) to catalogue the collective American web history for future generations. This began in 2000 to document how the presidential election was presented online, but after the attacks on September 11th, 2001 the program expanded to include notable historical events. Today, The National Archives catalogues a variety of topical web history, including national election candidates’ internet presences, news sites that give permission, and Facebook pages that give their permission (mostly politicians).

The most concerning piece of web history that The National Archives catalogues, though, is Twitter. Ever since a deal struck with Twitter in April 2010, The National Archives has been recording every tweet from every Twitter feed. Your tweets, your best friend’s tweets, and Charlie Sheen’s tweets will be accessible to your grandchildren and all of posterity.

Why is that significant?

As of yet, the tweets haven’t been used for anything revolutionary, and in all reality their researcher-like interface will not be a means of “Twitter stalking” for the average Joe. However, this does mean that around 500 million peoples’ personal thoughts are now public property. For most, this will not affect their lives in any way. But it’s not hard to imagine that future presidential candidates and Fortune 500 CEOs are currently tweeting posts and pictures that could later get them in trouble. The National Archives catalogues the tweets once posted, even if they are deleted later.

This might also come into play for police investigations. While a police officer currently needs a subpoena or search warrant to obtain records from Facebook, they would not need those documents to access what is now considered public record. While criminals who post about their misdemeanors on Twitter probably deserve to be caught, this does beg some ethical questions. Should law enforcers have a right to peruse people’s personal feeds for information? Do Twitter users need to be made aware that their tweets are being recorded, or for the sake of recording history honestly is it better to keep this news hushed?

And, will Twitter be the next social networking giant to be hit by privacy laws and standards?